Contacts with SLD

I think we all need to be very cautious in our contacts with SLD. During the E-Rate application process, you can be contacted by any number of SLD personnel from Problem Resolution or Program Integrity Assurance. While I would encourage you to be cordial with these individuals, after all, they are just doing their jobs, I think it's important that their jobs are not necessarily to help you through the E-Rate process. Instead, it may often seem that it's their job to see that your application is not successful. That's unfortunate but in this process they're looking for problems or gotchas. So, I see our job as making sure that we give them as few potential gotchas as possible.

My first piece of advice is to conduct all transactions with PR and PIA officials in writing. You can do it by fax or email - whatever's your preference. But you want to have written copies of all transactions. That way if your application is rejected and you need to appeal, you have a written copy of your interactions for the appeal. You can be sure that SLD personnel are taking notes of their conversations with you for the record. If your powers of recall are anything like mine, you don't want your appeal to depend on your fuzzy recollection of "I think I told him that I'd sent the certification form in January."

Second, only give them exactly what they ask for at the time - nothing more, nothing less. That's another way that written interactions can help. You're less likely to get chatty by email and start talking about something that might come back to bite you later. Remember anything you say can and will be used against you.

If you should happen to be chosen for a site visit, please let me know. Site visits often lead to audits so we want to be prepared.